On 11/25/2011 11:35 PM, Bill Horne wrote:
There is, of course, a "two-hundred pound gorilla" in the room: fuel
costs are usually minor compared to the cost of spoiled food, frozen
pipes, etc., so let me reassure everyone that I'm not looking for a
tiny difference. I'm just worried about getting a $1,000 gas bill if I
run a natural-gas powered generator for a week: we're not in need of a
fine-grained analysis here.

Ok, first off, an assumption. I'll go with the numbers I know.
My Honda EX4500S takes roughly 1 gallon / hour.
1 week = 168 hours.
168 hours x $3.50/gallon = $588.00

I stumbled across a "Cost of heating" chart, and I'm going to
assume that the relative fuel costs for heating would be similar.
So...

Gasoline = $588
Diesel = $620
Natural Gas = $582
Propane = $536
Electricity = $90

The differences are fairly small compared to one another. The real
problem is the apparent 15% efficiency of running a generator vs
using the wall outlet.

Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi

--
"Everything from Crackers to Coffins"